Tiana's Palace
Tiana's Palace is a quick-service restaurant in New Orleans Square at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California. Themed to Tiana's restaurant in the 2009 animated film The Princess and the Frog, it serves Cajun and Creole dishes — gumbos, po'boy sandwiches, shrimp and grits and beignets — from cafeteria-style counters, with seating on an outdoor terrace. It is not a character dining location, although Tiana appears elsewhere in New Orleans Square.
History
The restaurant stands on Orleans Street on a site with a much older history. The building was part of New Orleans Square from the land's dedication on 24 July 1966, when it opened as the French Market Restaurant, a buffeteria-style restaurant hosted for many years by Stouffer's. The French Market served Creole food to guests on its terrace for more than 56 years and was, for most of that time, the land's principal quick-service restaurant.[1]
The site's connection to Tiana predates the retheme. When animators designed Tiana's dream restaurant for The Princess and the Frog, they took the French Market Restaurant itself as a model — so when Disney later built a real Tiana's Palace, the film's design was, in effect, returning to its source.
Disney announced in January 2023 that the French Market would be reimagined as Tiana's Palace, as part of a wider introduction of Tiana's story into the area that had begun with Eudora's Chic Boutique and would continue with the Tiana's Bayou Adventure attraction. The French Market served its final day on 16 February 2023 and closed the following day, along with the adjoining Mint Julep Bar. After a conversion of less than seven months, Tiana's Palace opened on 7 September 2023, with the Mint Julep Bar reopening alongside it under its existing name.[2]
Setting
Imagineers worked with artists from the original film to make the existing building read as Tiana's restaurant, an old sugar mill converted into an elegant eatery. The most visible additions are on the roof: a riverboat-style wheelhouse and two smokestacks, copied from the film, the stacks bearing a large illuminated "T" that glows amber at night. The exterior was repainted from soft pink to a golden yellow with green awnings — Tiana's colours, echoing her ballgown — beneath a marquee sign that twinkles after dark.
Inside the ordering area, peach-coloured walls, wrought-iron balconies and a blue skylight inherited from the French Market are joined by lily-pad and lotus details, fixtures inspired by Tiana's dress, a mural of the bayou showing the stars Evangeline and Ray, and personal touches such as cookbooks and cooking utensils. Seating remains where it always was: outdoors on the terrace under the canopy, in the middle of New Orleans Square, where jazz musicians have traditionally performed for diners.
Cuisine
The menu was developed with advice from the Chase family of Dooky Chase's Restaurant, the landmark New Orleans restaurant whose chef Leah Chase was one of the inspirations for Tiana, and ingredients such as Gulf shrimp, andouille sausage and cane syrup are sourced from Louisiana where possible.[3]
The centrepieces are two gumbos: a House Gumbo of braised chicken and andouille sausage with heirloom rice, and a plant-based 7 Greens Gumbo of white beans, okra, yams and sweet potatoes, developed with the Chase family from a gumbo traditionally served only on the Thursday before Easter. The rest of the menu includes Gulf shrimp and cheesy grits, Cajun-spiced half chicken, a muffuletta sandwich, beef and andouille po'boys, red beans and rice, buttermilk cornbread, and baked macaroni and cheese for children. For dessert, the House-Filled Beignet combines a beignet with lemon icebox pie filling and a lemon glaze, while classic beignets are also served; the neighbouring Mint Julep Bar continues to sell mint juleps and Mickey-shaped beignets.